Tested (The Life of Uktesh Book 1) (5 page)

“No that’s not it.” He started.

“Then it’s settled, you will stay and enjoy a warm bed.”

“So where am I sleeping?” he asked, while he tried not to let the visions of Laurilli in his arms or her in his arms, or her head on his chest, show on his face.  Heathyr stared intently at Uktesh and he hastily added, “Wouldn’t want to make you two double in a bed.” 

“You can stay in the loft above the kitchen. It’s warm and comfortable.  We have the spare sleeping mat set up there for guests.” Heathyr said.

They spent an awkward few minutes as they set up the bed for Uktesh to sleep on, while he put his sword, knives, and unstrung bow and arrows in a safe place.  Once it was finished, Heathyr and Laurilli bid him good night and he tucked himself under the summer sheet, which smelled like Laurilli, and drifted off to sleep. 

He woke up alert at the sound of someone as they climbed up the latter to the loft.  He silently grabbed one of his knives and slid out of the bed.  While the person continued up the ladder, he moved too. Then he crouched silently in the darkest corner behind the ladder.  He saw a head with long hair poke up over the lip of the floor, and she cocked her head to the side in confusion.  “Uktesh?” Laurilli whispered.

“Behind you.” Uktesh whispered, and even though he had tried not to frighten her, he did not succeed.  Startled, she started to fall down the ladder.  Uktesh adapted one of the few balanced attacks that was used while crouched, Cricket Springs, to spring forward and grab her arm before she made any noise and before she fell more than a few inches. 

“How’d you do that?”

“What do you mean?  I just jumped and grabbed you.”  Uktesh put her back on the ladder and her legs had no strength to hold herself up, so he lifted her up, and set her down next to himself.  He was slightly amazed that he had the strength to lift her up one handed, even though she was a very petite and short girl.  Her legs were still unsteady when he set her down next to himself, and she fell forward into him.  Uktesh caught her again, this time his hands were around her slender waist, and her hands were gripped firmly on his arms.  She gazed at him with her brilliantly blue eyes, and he felt his legs start to go weak, “Let’s get you to the bed.” 

He walked her over to the bed, gently set her down, and leaned back so that his feet were inches from hers, with his back to one of the support pillars.  Now that he got a good look at her, he realized that she was clothed in very short shorts and a shirt that must’ve been her father’s because it was longer than her shorts.  She tucked her knees to her chest and put her shirt over her legs to cover her body totally to her feet. 

In a totally formless ball of cloth Uktesh still thought that she was the most beautiful girl in the world.  He suddenly thought back to the town that was massacred and thought of the children who ran to fight.  He couldn’t understand his own inability to move to help. 

He knew that if this perfect woman was in danger he would fight, he wouldn’t hesitate, and that brought him comfort. 
For her I will become a hero. I will no longer be a coward.
  He realized that his face probably had a silly grin on it and that Laurilli had a smile to out shine the sun that she was currently shining back at him.

“What are you smiling about?” he asked.

“You first.”

“I was just thinking about a family I saw on my way here and was thinking that if anyone tried to hurt you I would fight them to the best of my ability.  Your turn.”

“I was just thinking that you look silly grinning like a fool.”

Uktesh pursed his lips and thought about saying something in return, but decided that she was probably right. He hadn’t had much practice, and decided to say as much, “You’re probably right. I haven’t had much practice.  Where I grew up, I was kind of an outcast because people thought that I wasn’t living up to my potential.  So every time I failed to do something right, they made sure that I was ridiculed for it. I didn’t fail often, but when I did I never heard the end of it.  ‘Remember when Uktesh tripped over the sand last week?’  ‘What about last month when he thought that he was being attacked by the wind and started to swing his sword around like a fool.’  ‘Or four years ago when he was training to run and couldn’t even figure out how to do that!’  It was hard to be happy there, but my dad was always kind and understanding, so he made up for the rest of the village being mean to me.”

“That so sad.  I understand how you feel though.  Since my dad went off to the war, we found that more and more people stopped coming by to see us, and less and less of my friends are willing to spend time with me.  Now it’s just mom and me and the boys in the village keep picking on me whenever they find me alone, so mom doesn’t let me go out on my own very often.  I joke about it, but,” she swallowed hard, and she fought back tears, “if you hadn’t shown up they might have,” tears welled in her beautiful eyes, “they might have,” he voice tightened and, before she could complete the horrible thought, Uktesh had her in his arms stroking her hair as she cried into his chest. 

Those bastards!  I’ll kill them if they try to hurt her again.  Dekan and Baloce you are in need of a beating. Making Laurilli cry is bad enough, but you made her think you would rape her.
  Uktesh found that he was holding her and continued to rub her back and stroke her hair while she cried silent sobs into his chest.

“You wouldn’t ever hurt me would you?”

“No Laurilli. Never.”

“Promise me you won’t leave either.”

“I promise.”  He’d known from the moment he met her that he was besotted and that she was the only one for him.  He started to think about where he might be able to make a permanent camp, but on the walk to the house he hadn’t found any promising spots.  He knew his own thoughts about her, but her thoughts were a mystery to him, so he asked, “So does this mean we’re betrothed?”

She laughed and hugged him tighter, “I think it just means that you’re my best friend.”

Best friend?
  He thought about it for a second
, I can handle that. 
“If I’m the best friend of the prettiest girl in the world, does that make me handsome?” 

She laughed again, which seemed to lighten the very air about him, and Uktesh wanted to make her laugh again and again.  “So you think I’m pretty?”

“I think you’re the most beautiful girl in the world.”

“I’m fourteen almost fifteen!  I’m a woman now.”

“Then I think that you’re the most beautiful woman in the world.”

She pushed away from him slightly and said, “You shouldn’t say that except to your wife.”

“Then you should become my betrothed, so that I can shout it from the hills.”

“There aren’t any hills around here just the one mountain,” she said with a grin.

Dang, she deflected my question again! 
“Then I will climb up to the top of this house, stand on the roof, and shout it from there. Every man who hears my voice will weep for they will no longer be able to marry you themselves!”

She smiled and said, “You wouldn’t.”

“Well, since we’re not betrothed, just best friends, you’ll never know.”

Uktesh sat next to her this time, and they laid back, her head on his shoulder and he had his arm around her shoulder.  “So,” she asked timidly, “you think I’m beautiful?”

He laughed and hugged her to him, “Well,” he said thoughtfully, “only if you don’t mind marrying an older man.”

“How old are you?”

“I’m fifteen, a full year older than you,” he said, slightly proud of his age, but also uncertain as to why.

“That doesn’t matter then.  Tell me about where you grew up.”

He sighed deeply and decided to tell her the whole truth, he started, “I was born in Beletaria. I’m very good at fighting other people, and that’s why they made fun of me anytime I failed.  I figure you should know, I ran away after my village was attacked.  I’m not sure by whom.  But after my father was killed, I just ran.  After that I had a vision about the attack, and of a man named Thulmann,” he felt Laurilli stiffen against him.

She turned in his arms and elbowed him in the process, “You met my dad!  Was he alright?  Did he have any bandages?  Was he happy?”

“Thulmann’s your father?”  Laurilli nodded and urged him to continue.  “Um, he was fine. I didn’t see any wounds. I don’t think he was really happy, but he’d just been a part of a…”
massacre, but I can’t say that
, “…a battle.  I don’t think that he enjoys killing people.  So that’s good.”

“How long ago did you see him?”

“It was maybe a month ago.”

“Why didn’t he stop by here?  How far away were you?”

“I don’t know.  It took about a month to walk from there to here.”

“But he was safe?”

“Yeah, he was with nine other warriors who seemed very strong.”   Curiosity about the man that had spared his life made him ask, “Tell me about him.”

“He was so strong, and kind. Everyone in town loves him.  They were so angry with my mom when he married her.  She came from Granger with her uncle and my dad fell instantly head over heels for her. He was sixteen and she was fifteen. They were betrothed months later and married a year and a day after that.  Ten months later they had me, but I was a difficult birth, and my mom can’t have any more children.”

“I was a difficult birth too, my mom died giving me life.” Uktesh felt the tears he’d been able to hold in for a life time well in his eyes, “I’ve wondered so often if everyone would’ve been better off if I’d been the one to die.”

“No!  You can’t think that!”  She leveraged herself up so that she could look into his eyes.  “I wouldn’t be better off!  My mom might be comforting me right now if not for you.”

“I’m a coward though.” Her eyes widened in shock. “The reason I’m no longer good at fighting is because, I’m afraid to attack. I don’t even understand the reasons behind it. I don’t think it’s fear of being hurt. Whenever we would practice forms I was the best, but when it came to actually using the forms in a battle, I froze.  Ultimately, father died because of it.  And now you know my secret. I’m one of the evil people that your people want to wipe out.”

“No, that’s not true!” She said, her blue eyes shone in the moonlight with unshed tears, “You’re a good person. I can tell.  We don’t want to wipe out your people. We just want to live in peace. But once the border raids became border wars, the council decided to form an alliance and demand the Beletarians stop warring with us. But the peace delegation was murdered, and only one man was allowed to journey back to tell us why. 

“After that we had to fight.  It was that or slowly be destroyed, or at least that’s what my dad said, says,” she corrected herself, “that’s what my dad says.”

“You and I are probably going to be the last to know the truth about why this war started. We, my village, and the others around us enjoyed the peace our ancestors fought and died to secure.”

“Would you teach me to fight?  I’ve always wanted to and my dad used to teach me, until mom stopped him.  After that he just kept saying that young ladies shouldn’t be thinking of harming others, just about living happily.  I want to be happy, I want to be able to defend myself if Baloce or Dekan or anyone else decide that I’m enough of an outsider that no one will notice or care if I’m soiled.” 

She said it!  She actually believes that those two would’ve raped her!
  She curled in a ball away from his side and he could hear her as she began to cry again.  Without a thought he hugged her from behind and just held her. 
I can’t believe how strong she is!  She was joking about this with her mom, probably because she knew if she didn’t Heathyr would worry about it for real, but by joking it made it less real.  I was there and I believed her. 

Slowly her tears subsided and she asked again, “Will you teach me?”

“I’ll teach you all that you can learn. We’ll start with unarmed combat and move on from there.  We’ll see how quickly you learn that, and then we’ll see if you can progress to weapons.  Do you have any clothes to wear that are not dresses?”

“Of course I do, but I just like dresses.”

“Good. Then we can start practicing in the morning.” Uktesh yawned and looked at the sky as it slowly became lighter and said, “I can’t believe that we’ve talked the whole night!”

Laurilli at up quickly and moved towards the ladder that led down into the kitchen and said, “Oh no! I have to get back to my room before mom realizes I’ve been up here all night!”

Uktesh yawned again and lay lengthwise on the bed.  He and could smell flowers where Laurilli had been next to him.  He smiled and tried to think about their conversation, tried to remember the finer points, but all too soon he fell asleep.

Rabbits Make Terrible Pets

Uktesh woke up to the sounds of cooking and the smell of baking bread. He wanted to go back to bed and sleep some more, but he knew that wouldn’t be fair to Laurilli who had probably been awake for hours.  Outside his window two green turtledoves sang to each other too loudly.  Uktesh lazily threw a pebble a one and hit it on its shell. 

They flew off and chattered angrily at him. He stumbled to the ladder and sleepily climbed down.  Because he did not pay enough attention his foot missed the last step, and he thudded to the ground. Shocked and no longer sleepy he leaned against the ladder and caught his breath.  “Good morning.  You seem like you were up late?  Couldn’t sleep in a bed?  I’ve heard that happens when you’ve been camping for a long time.”